SOMO News

We are enjoying our time here with team Missouri at the 2018 USA Games. We are a part of the youth leadership experience which gives youth around the country the opportunity to learn leadership skills through different experiences with the games. On Monday, we got to do some story reporting on our teams as well as spectators, sponsors and various other people around the games. On Tuesday, we learned about unified sports and how unified teams are evaluated at the games. We also learned about how unified sports can be used in a college setting. Lauren learned some tools to take back to start unified sports as a part of her intramural in college. Wednesday, we spent shadowing our swimming team in the morning. In the afternoon we had the opportunity to shadow Heather Harmer, who is in charge of the healthy athlete program for USA Games. The girls really enjoyed getting some background information on healthy athletes and how it works! On Thursday, we were able to spend the whole day immersed in the young athlete program which was exhausting but so much fun!

We spent the evenings enjoying different activities with team Missouri like the Family Fourth. We have had some awesome opportunities to meet people like Tim Shriver, Ray Roberts, several staff from SONA and SOI and Lauren Potter (from Glee). Piper has really enjoyed meeting all the other state delegations and trading her Mo Magic pins!

The girls are having a blast and gaining lots of experiences that will give them tools to promote inclusion in their communities when they go home! Luckily, we have also had the chance to be spectators for team Missouri. So far, we’ve had the chance to watch track, bocce, powerlifting and basketball. We are so excited to be a part of Team Missouri. Go Mo Magic!